6/15/15 | Ft. Meezy

Dear Family!!

I got sent to Ft Myers this past week and will be greenie-breaking a big poly and district leading! President drops the ZL's for their last 1-2 transfers to either DL, train or just finish as a regular missionary.  My comps name is Elder Kamalamalama (easy way to remember: 1 kama 2 lama)  he's a native Hawaiian and is very humble, we get along pretty well.  My district is a bro-district, meaning we only have elders which is ok with me, no more sister problems to worry about:)  There are 6 of us total in the district and President specifically sent me to this one to "liven things up a bit".  I could see why as soon as I got here, all of their faith was shot because ft. myers is a bit more difficult to work than the east coast of the mission.  Did my first district training on creating success and creating faith in our areas.  It went very well and our district did exponentially better than the entire last month.  All it took was faith!  

We named the district the "Dunk City" district which is appropriate because we will be baptizing a lot this month!  

It's been weird recognizing places here.  When we came here for the bball tournament 2 years ago, I never would've thought I'd serve a mission in the same area where we came. There's been a lot of members who watched Lone Peak play at that tournament so I already have a lot of friends in the ward:)    

The biggest transfer week miracle came after District training on Friday. I did a training on creating success, so Elder Kamalamalama and I went out and had faith to create success.  We went to a new area to knock doors and again had the faith that we would find a lot of people. Within the hour we met and taught 3 families the restoration and got them committed for baptism, it was amazing to see the power of faith at work!  

I was studying in Mosiah 7 this morning and asked the question, "why be obedient?" in verse 29 God answers it pretty bluntly, "For behold, the Lord hath said: I will not succor my people in the day of their transgression; but I will hedge up their ways that they prosper not; and their doings shall be as a stumbling block before them."  I'm really going to be focusing on obedience for my district, we won't be able to achieve anything if everyone is not exactly obedient.  

also We baptized this past weekend, huge miracle!! I was praying so hard that we would be able to baptize when I got to Ft. Myers and we did on Saturday!! His name is Alluri, from India and was converted to Christianity some time ago and found the church when he ordered a free Bible, cool story!  

I love you all!

Elder Spencer Bailey

6/9/15 | Goodbye Hollyhood

Dear Family!

This past week flew by as usual!   We qualified for miracles as we worked hard and focused on the task at hand.  Our area is progressing a lot, we had 8 people at church and will be baptizing a lot of them this month.  I'll also be transferring tomorrow! I'll miss the ward and area a lot!  

We saw a huge miracle yesterday on pros-monday.  We went out with faith that we would find a family of 4 who was elect and ready.  While knocking we found 2 elect individuals who we taught, but we still hadn't found that family. We continued knocking and on the last door we knocked we found a family of 4!!! we had specifically prayed to find a family who hadn't been going to church and they were looking for a home church to attend.  While talking with them, we found they haven't been going to church in a long time and would love to find a church that was family oriented!  It was such an amazing miracle!!

President told me where I was going next transfer with one week left!! Took  a lot to make sure I stayed focused.  I'll tell you all next week where I get transferred too:)

I felt the Spirit speak to me a lot during studies last week.  I had been praying and studying a lot to have more faith and trust in God and in His decisions.  While in Jacob 5 I came across this passage 

"71 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto them: Go to,and labor in the vineyard, with your might... and if ye labor with your might with me ye shall have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up unto myself against the time which will soon come.

 72 And it came to pass that the servants did go and labor with their mights; and the Lord of the vineyard labored also with them; and they did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things."

I realized that I need to listen to God and gladly work wherever He needs me. 

I love you all a lot!!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

here's a pic of a family we've been working with that's supposed to be baptized this month. the black guy on the right is my friend Ahmad, he comes out teaching with us all the time, so cool!

6/1/15 | Baptizing Haitians

Heyo Family!

this past week was great! we saw so many miracles occur as we worked hard and strived to become better. Louis was baptized wednesday nightand Yolain and David were baptized Saturday afternoon, it was awesome!! Now it's time to do it all again this upcoming month! 

The biggest miracle we saw this week was the miracle of the atonement within our investigators. We've been teaching a family for the past couple of weeks and taught the Word of Wisdom Monday night. The reaction of the family was priceless! The dad is addicted to cuban coffee and drinks on occasion and he really likes his iced tea, when we taught the WoW his jaw dropped and stayed dropped the rest of the visit, but by the end he told us, "I believe this is a commandment from God and I will do my best to live it!" Well, on Saturday he got drunk and we went over that evening to visit with them. When we walked in he was in a fetal position on the couch and was constantly telling us sorry for drinking and that he felt terrible! It was a perfect opportunity to teach about the power of forgiveness. He liked it a lot and committed to never drink again because of the godly sorrow he was feeling and that he would ask for forgiveness right away. We will be baptizing his family on the 20th of June, they are all so elect!!

I have continued my study on Pride this week and found a scripture in Jacob 2:16 "Let not this pride of your hearts destroy your souls!" Also read the talk, "beware of pride" by President Benson and he says, "Pride is a damning sin in the true sense of that word. It limits or stops progression." In order for us to qualify for miracles in June we need to constantly be changing, the only way to change is to be humble. 

We also got to help Elder Garrett pick up some new cars again and help move some missionary apartments.  We had an elder go home last week from sickness and we have 2 others sick with whooping cough so they're quarantined right now, crazy stuff!!  

Love you guys lots, have a good week!!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

despite the look on louis' face, he was happy to be there:)

here's a pic of Yolain's and David's baptism, I also forgot my tie...oops

5/26/15

Dear Family!!

this week has been awesome! saw so many miracles as we exercised faith as a zone!  We did a zone fast yesterday and saw a lot of miracles come from it.  We still have our mission goal of 100 baptisms, we are 62 right now and need 38 to go, we'll be baptizing 4 tomorrow evening, it's going to be awesome!! As a zone all the elder's have been wearing red ties, at the end of the month when we hit 100, we'll all get together on P-day and burn our ties, fits the name Mayfire perfectly!    Elder Helas and I are getting along better, I've been  working really hard at developing more charity and getting rid of pride within myself.  Already just over the weekend my relationship with the zone members and elder helas has increased! I read a talk by Pres. Uchtdorf and he says, "Pride is a switch that turns off priesthood power. Humility is a switch that turns it on." I'll continue to work on becoming more humble and to work hard and become a better missionary!

Yesterday the biggest miracle of my mission occurred.  We had been fasting since Sunday night and finished a District Training in North Miami then went on 3 fire exchanges.  we went to get dinner to break our fast and got a call from Louis our former investigator.  Told us to stop by so we went over right away, re-taught the restoration to refresh his mind, then re-invited him to be baptized this week, he accepted and wanted to be baptized on Wednesday with our other family we are baptizing, such an amazing miracle!!!

Also on Saturday we helped a family move out, they are moving to Philly, and they had nothing packed! so we helped them from 9-3:30, it was lots of fun.  Found out the guys dad and siblings all live in Philly and so I had them ask his sister if she knew alyssa, turns out they knew her super well from her mission, small world!!  

Not much else happened this week. oh yeah, on Friday we were switching back from exchanges in Davie (I got to work in my old area, it was awesome!!) and we got a call from the office and they asked us to go help them move some cars.  We went over and we all jumped into a van and drove to a Toyota dealership and picked up 6 brand new Toyota Corolla's. the perk was that we each got to drive our own with permission from President as long as we stayed within sight.  I can only imagine what people thought when they saw a big van with 6 corolla's following it with guys in white shirts and ties driving them...I love mission life!!

I love you guys!

Elder Spencer Bailey

5/18/15 | MAYFIRE

Hey Family!!! 

This week was great!!  had zone training which went well, president showed up and enjoyed it a lot.  talked about creating a NEED to find and baptize the elect.  then trained on sacrifice and how when we have a need we will sacrifice to meet our need.  also practiced the new way to teach the Plan of Salvation, too complicated to explain over email, but its a very simple powerful way to teach the 
PoS.  

We were greatly compensated this week as we went out and had a NEED to find the elect.  It was hard at the beginning of the week to find, but God blessed us for our efforts at the end of the week. We had some key clutch plays that helped us succeed this week! 

 All week long we had been praying to find an elect family of 4 where the father was receptive and proactive in helping his family be baptized and that they would all be willing to accept baptism.  We had been knocking doors for hours all week with little to no success in finding the elect, but we didn't let that deter us from achieving our goal.  

On Thursday we prayed and felt prompted to go to a particular neighborhood. After knocking for hours and not finding anyone we felt prompted to keep going but try an area more south in the neighborhood. As we went down there we felt really good about it.  On about the 3rd door we knocked a teenage girl (Jackie) jumped out and started talking with us, then her dad came around the corner and told us to come inside so we didn't let the cold air out.  We talked with the family and immediately knew they were elect! After saying a prayer with them  they accepted church and baptism.  We visited with them yesterday night and taught the restoration with a member family who lives in the neighborhood (little side note, the family we brought was from Nicaragua and so was the wife (Caroline), we had no idea until during the lesson, they matched perfectly! I have a strong testimony of making sure you have the RIGHT member, not just a member) and after the lesson the father (Manuel) said, "I had no idea the apostles were killed off and the Church was lost, I learned so much today!" He hastily agreed to be baptized by the proper authority and was very PROACTIVE in helping his family accept too.  It was just what we had been praying for all week, such a huge miracle!! I know that as we expect a miracle, God will bless us with that miracle as long as we sacrifice for it and keep the faith.

I did a study this week about being creative in the work and creating a "play book."  In missionary work its very easy to be rote in our approaches.  When we're rote its hard to follow the spirit and satan starts picking up on our patterns.  If satan knows what we are going to do, he can go ahead and harden the hearts of the people against what we are about to say. On the flip side, when we "change the game" and follow the Spirit and mix up the questions we ask, the things we say, our testimony, etc. it allows the Spirit to go ahead and soften the hearts of the people so they will accept out message.  This is something I studied a long time ago, but we did a comp study on this and it all came back to memory. This week we've been working hard on making sure we "change the game" and open the "play book" so that the Spirit can be with us more.

Also Yolain, David and Queen and Victor all came to church, they'll be baptized on the 27th of May!!!  very cool Americanized Haitian family!

Random story: went and saw a less-active this past week.  Talked about the importance of Church and the sabbath day.  He stopped us there and said he was only baptized because of the missionaries and he didn't believe there was only 1 church and that we would be awfully surprised at the judgement day when ALL people will live with God again no matter the choices they made.  we listened politely till he ran out of breath, then bore a simple, powerful testimony of the Restoration. You can tell when someone has a hardened heart, this was one of those times, the Spirit bounced back at us, so we took that as our cue to leave.  On the way out we literally got attacked by these huge snakes, no joke!!  My comp stepped on one first, then all these snakes came out of no where and were running into our legs and going over our feet, thankfully they were just garden snakes, such a random experience! we named his house "the den of vipers".

Well thats about all that happened this week, love you all!!! have fun in Cancun mom and dad!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey 

5/11/15 | Happy Mothers Day!!

Hey Family!!!

I was so much fun to talk with you yesterday!! Hope you had a happy mothers day!! I don't have much time to email and since we just talked yesterday  I don't know what to say:)  

This past week was rough trying to find people.  But Elder Helas and I are starting to get along much better so the Spirit will be with us more to help us in the work.  We worked so hard but all of our investigators disappeared Sunday morning, but we go out hard this week and find the elect and make up for this past week! I'm very excited for zone training this week, it will help turn this zone around!

Our mission started doing whats called Family@4 Friday. It's when the entire mission during the hours of 4-5 on friday goes out and knocks and finds a family to teach.  The biggest miracle I saw this past week was during Family @ 4 Friday. I've been really wanting to gain a testimony of it and this week I was determined to gain one.  We went on exchanges on Friday so I was with Elder Mears and we went to the neighborhood where we prayed about and then followed the Spirit to find the right street.  The Spirit led us to a street where we knocked for the next hour.  Before knocking we set a vision that we would find an elect family of 3 who has transportation and wants to be baptized and has support from the father.  about 40 minutes into the hour we found the family!!  We were able to pray and teach the restoration to the mother and son and they have a very strong desire to be baptized again by the proper authority, I have a strong testimony about family @ 4 Fridaynow!  

I don't remember what else happened this week, it flew by, well I have to go now! I love you!!

love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

5/4/15 | The Currant Bush

Hey Family!

(sorry for any spelling errors, spell check isn't working today)

What a crazy week!  It all went great until it came crashing down on Saturday.  We fought off fatigue and sickness and kept working with the hope and belief that we would find the elect.  None of our investigators were home to round-up for church and we weren't finding, it was a struggle, but we kept the faith.  Then we got a phone call saturday nightfrom the AP's that Elder Hayward would be emergency transferred today. We were super confused and mad because transfers happened just last week, so we called president and asked for an answer of why it happened, he couldn't tell us anything except an emergency happened up north in a new ZL companionship and he needed us to fix it. oh well, we'll trust his decision. This week showed to me that when we strive to "up our game" so does Satan and his followers.  But we saw one huge miracle on Saturday among all of this.

While rounding up our investigators we OYM'ed this girl named Princess, yeah that's her real name:)  She's 22 and has 2 kids and is going through a lot right now.  We offered to pray with her and she immediately knew that we had been sent from God to help her out.  She accepted church and baptism and said this is what she needed.  Upon inviting her to come to church she said, "I'm gonna bring my church swag when I come!"  She ended up getting sick and couldn't come to church, but last night we brought a member over with us to visit her.  While talking about baptism the member, he was baptized 2 months ago, shared his conversion story and sealed the deal for her to get baptized, he said exactly what she needed to hear and she is set to be baptized on the 23rd!  My testimony on bringing the right members increased greatly last night!

One thing I learned this week was applying what I learned last week about enduring well.  This week was one of the roughest weeks of my mission, we had to drop 2 big families who just wouldn't commit to be baptized, and a bunch of other stuff happened this week that just made it hard.  On Sunday I had all of these questions going through my mind like, "why is this happening right now? We've worked so hard."  "We were doing so good! What happened to this week!"  During testimony meeting there were a few testimonies that stuck out to me.  The first was when a member talked about "waiting upon the Lord" and he'll give you strength, meaning we need to be patient and serve the Lord to receive strength.  Another person talked about how the Lord brings us low to raise us higher and that reminded me of a discussion Elder Hayward and I had about the "Currant Bush" story.  The Gardener cut downt he currant bush because he loved it and wanted it to grow more, just like how God cuts us down to help us grow and become better.  I decided to take this challenge and work really hard on growing from it and rising up instead of staying cut down.  

May will be great though, there are only good times and hard times as a missionary, no such thing as easy.  We are stepping up our game for may so that we can hit our mission and zone goal so it's only expected that this will be a very hard month, we're feeling it already! bring it on! 

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

Here's a pic of us and the missionaries in our ward